Momma's Broken Heart
by Jack And Honey
Summary: She'd cut her hair with a pair of rusty kitchen scissors, screamed Ed's named till the neighbors called the cops. She could hear her momma saying she ain't gonna have it. But now, looking at the scuffy man as she held the bottle of Southern Comfort- there was no way she was gonna stop. She needed a night of sweet amber liquid and sweet Southern Comfort. {Caryl AU]
1. Chapter 1

**"The thing with Daryl is that I think you have to drink with him. I'd definitely drink with him. I don't think Daryl hates everyone off the bat; he's just super cautious. If you want to share some Southern Comfort, I think that's a good way to get to know Daryl."  
Norman Reedus**

**_.+._ **

"Care for any company?" A woman's voice asked as a bottle of Southern Comfort was set down in front of his face.  
Daryl Dixon had been laying half way across the greasy booth table after a long day and a short night before.  
He'd been so focused on peeling the label off his beer bottle that he'd not even heard the clacking of woman's heals as he was walked up to.

With a tilt and a roll of his head, he turned to look at who was speaking to him, ready to tell the –prostitute most likely- to get lost and to leave him to his misery and weak alcohol.

She was tall and thin, dressed in a deep red dress that showed off the skin of her arms and her collarbone, but still somehow hid everything else carefully away- A gift on Christmas, begging to be unwrapped.  
There was an awful lot of leg showing under the folds of red fabric.

He grunted, though did not comment.  
He cursed his lack of decorum when she sat primly across from him with a smile.  
She looked better suited for a Baptist Church service Downtown Savannah and not the nasty bar tucked between two rundown buildings.  
The air smelled of sawdust, and of stale spilled beer-  
Not to mention the desperation of old drunkards and the hopes and dreams of losers like him.  
Some piss was in there too.

No, she was much too pretty to be in a place like this.

He sat all the way up, eyeing her with a raised brow and a suspicious expression.

"Was SoCo okay?" She asked nervously as she ran her hand through her short reddish curls.  
It was a choppy sort of haircut- he could see several spots where the hairdresser had missed.

'_Who the fuck calls it SoCo?' _He thought wryly as he crossed his arms and stuck his thumbs into his armpits.

"I can go get something else if..." she started out.  
How strange she'd be nervous? What the fuck she have to be nervous for? She was the one who started talking to him.

"It's fine." He said with an almost smile, his face still cautious.

"Well!" The woman grinned, red lips parting in a smile and blue eyes twinkling as she poured two glasses of the amber liquid. "cheers." She sang lightly, tapping the glass on the one now in his hand.  
She took a swig without so much as a flinch as her other hand waved the other in front of her face to rid herself of the string of smoke that had floated up from the cigarette between his fingers.

"Oh." He commented, watching the smoke float around her eyelashes like pearls pulled from their string.  
He went to snuff out the flame but her hand caught his as it was about to rest over the ashtray.

"It's okay. I like Parliaments." She pulled her hand back, but the sensation of his skin on hers was still there.  
His eyes trailed from his wrist where she had held his skin in hers back to the faint bruise on her temple.

He squinted his eyes, wondering how she knew what he smoked.

"Mind if I bum one?" she asked.

He said nothing, simply taking out the package from his breast pocket and holding it out to her, filter first.  
She caught it with her lips, as he brought the lighter up to the end, watching as the flame flickered across the shadows and plains of her face.  
Her eyes seemed to glow in that instant from the fire as the end caught light and she inhaled deeply.  
It had given her an almost ethereal glow about her- she'd looked like a nymph. Or a siren coming to call him into her bosom (which was quite nice, he noted) where he might be swamped forever.

He lifted his own cigarette to his lips as she inhaled softly, the smoke streaming out of her nose.  
She looked as though she were in bliss as the nicotine reached her brain.

After a few more drags and a gulp of liquid(courage) on his part, she stretched out her hand, holding it out to him.

"I'm Carol."

"Dixon." He said after a moment and a gulp with a twitch of his lips, not unlike a cat. "Daryl Dixon."

**_.+._ **  
**Any relation to 'THE LADY IN RED' by The Readers Muse is simply a coincidence and in no way am I trying to mooch off of that beautiful, beautiful work of fiction. **  
**Be a doll, leave a review!**  
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	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you so much for all the views and favorites and reviews! ya'll are so sweet! **  
**Drop a review! lemme know how it's doing. **  
**Walking dead isn't mine nor is "Mama's Broken heart." by Miranda Lambert. **  
**Everything is everyone elses.  
**  
**_.+._ **

The bar was perfect.  
For her needs, anyhow…  
There was something almost fantastic about it.  
She liked the smell of sawdust, of spilled beer.

It was so different from the places she'd been in the last several years that she felt a glorious thrill of fear and unease.  
It was a different sort of thrill and unease than she was used to- those usually ended with her laying in bed for a day or two.  
This was more like that of jumping into a deep ended swimming pool and waiting for the world to come up around you in a splash of cool- weightless, muffled sounding bliss.

She received several leers as she walked up to the bar as the men she passed tried to look up her skirt.  
(She'd worn proper underwear, than you very much!)

"What can I get you, pretty lady?" the bartender asked with a gross sort of grin as he came to lean against the counter, an eyebrow lifting.

"Glass of Tennessee Honey please. With Ice." She stated primly, setting the money on the table.

As the bartender got what she had asked for, she let her gaze flit over the patrons of the bar.

The man to her left was much too old.  
The one to the left much too young (And currently schmoozing over a over painted woman with white blonde hair bleached to a fine frizz) But the man across the room.  
He was something interesting.

He was bent over the grease lined tabletop staring into the brown murk of his beer bottle as if it might give him the answers to the questions he held inside.

He wore a raggety plaid shirt, rolled up at the elbows and showing his strong forearms. His floppety brown hair covered his face but she saw the strong jawline and the smooth cheeks. His fingers flicked ash from the cigarette before placing it up to his lips and taking a long drag.  
She thought it funny how he didn't hold it between two fingers like most people did.  
But nearly gripped it with all his fingers, as if he were afraid someone would snatch it from him.

He was perfect, but there was something missing…  
As the bartender placed the glass in front of her she tilted her head and looked at the man.

"What's he drink?" she asked the bar tender.

"Who?" He asked again, even though he followed her gaze to the man in the back booth.

"Him." She pointed him out with roll of her eyes.

"Oh. Dixon." He stated in a drawl voice. "Beer mostly. Usually something darker. But if it's been a really bad day Southern Comfort, why you wanna know 'bout that dumbass redneck?"

Judging by the way his fingers were tapping on the table, as if he were punching in numbers on a calculator, pausing every now and again as if he were thinking before tapping again. She highly doubted the man was- as the bartender called him, 'a dumbass'

"Gimme two glasses with ice and a bottle of Southern'" She stated, turning around to face the man with a stern glance.

"He'll give you nothing but trouble." The bartender stated, placing the glasses before her after he'd scooped the ice into the glass.  
It made a dull tinkling noise that somehow had echoed louder than the jukebox in the corner that was crooning George Jones. "Takes more than a bottle of booze and a nice rack to get into his pants. And he don't pay."

"Hmmm…" she stated, twisting her lips. She snatched the bottle up, tucked it under her elbow and took a deep breath before squaring her shoulders and walking over to him.

**_.+._**

"Dixon. Daryl Dixon." He'd told her after she'd offered her name.  
She thought he looked almost like a cat, a very nervous cat who had been left out in the rain too many times.

He'd looked at her so shyly, so nervously and so very guardedly that she couldn't help but almost feel- just for a moment, as if he were going to reach out and hit her for simply being in his space.  
But then'd he'd sat up and actually told her she could sit down.  
Well, sort of- it was more of a grunt.

"It's lovely to meet you, Daryl." She smiled easily. It wasn't so bad when she knew that he was as nervous as she was.

"What do you want?" he asked after a moment, his brows furrowed.

"Good company." She replied, taking another drag.  
She sighed again, enjoying the feel of the smoke in her lungs and the taste on her lips.

"Your husband doesn't let you smoke, does he?" he asked suddenly.  
She snapped her attention upwards from her glass in time to see the shocked look on his face, as if he'd not meant to say it.

"Ex Husband, actually." She stated. "And no, he didn't." She gave him an interested look- he'd be fun to figure out.  
"How'd you know that?"

He shrugged again but she just nudged his thigh with her foot.  
"Go on, tell me, Mr. Holmes."

He shifted in his seat again.

"Dress is too expensive for a prostitute, they won't wear something that'd just as likely get torn off-  
You're too old to still be living at home for your old man to deal with-  
Fingers aren't yellow, so you're not a habitual smoker, and it ain't a money thing. That and you've still got an indentation from where the ring sat." He gestured to her hand where her hand sat curled around her glass.

She thought it so strange that he spoke with such a thick accent, yet used the words habitual and indentation.

"If you're looking for a new sugardaddy, I ain't it." He told her simply. "I ain't got the time to deal with domestic B.S"

She snorted. "Not really what I was looking for. No. Besides, who says I'm looking for everything."

"Hell, Lady." He snorted, "Every bodies looking for somethin' – So. What're you lookin' for?" He looked almost as if he wanted to know despite himself.

"Good time." She told him.

"You'd be sooner lookin' for a better haircut." He snorted, taking a drag. "Who the hell did that 'do anyhow?"

Much to his surprise, it seemed, she laughed.  
She laughed well and hard, drawing every eye to their booth for a small moment.

"I did." She told him, wiping tears from her eyes.

"You what?" He asked, eyes crinkling up at the corners, as if he wanted to laugh but wasn't quite sure. "Hell you do that for?"

"I got so pissed off I cut it all off with a pair of rusty kitchen scissors, Screamin' his name till the neighbors called the cops." She laughed again

"It ain't so bad…" he mumbled. She just looked at him with an unconvinced expression. "So long as you trim the uhh…well, the uneven bits."

She giggled, "Yeah. Should do that, shouldn't I?" he smiled slowly, the corners of his mouth perking up before he could duck his head to hide it.  
"We're gonna get along just fine, Mr. Dixon. Just fine indeed."


	3. Chapter 3

**Oh look! a new chapter! tell me what you think! Thanks for reading and thank all ya'll for the lovely reviews and all the faves. It makes my day everytime my phone buzzes!  
Is this too ooc? even for an AU? Lemme know, cause I'm clueless.**

_.+._

"So what's your story?" he asked her, head tilting, lip being gnawed by his front teeth.

"My story?" She asked, "What says I have one?"

"That bruise on your temple." He stated simply, gesturing with his hand towards her face.

"Oh, that." She sighed, hand touching the bruise.

"Yeah. That."

"Is it that noticeable?" She asked, brow furrowing, her hands folding in front of her.

"Yes 'n no." he shrugged, looking quite like a little boy answering his favorite teacher's questions. "I just noticed it I guess."

She raised a brow.

"So that's why you're here? Causa him?"

"No."

"Maybe." She nodded with a grin, ring finger swirling around the edge of her glass.

"So, lets hear it."

"Hear what? My story?" She shook her head, "It's not special."

"Shoot-sure it is, No one this pretty has walked through those doors in twenty damn years." He said, gesturing to her with a absent flip of his hand.  
He felt his face heat up at the fact that he'd told her that she was pretty.

"You think I'm pretty?" She asked, eyes twinkling like a teenage girls.  
(Even though she was _surely _not)

He shrugged, taking a gulp and hoping to drown in the amber liquid-  
She giggled, eyes crinkling, and right cheek and chin dimpling.

"You're funny. I like you." She told him, her foot nudging his under the table.

He waved his hand, telling her to go on as he poured them another glass.


	4. Chapter 4

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**Thanks much! **

_.+._

What an odd fellow.  
What a strange man.  
He looked so quiet and closed off, yet he asked about her-  
What her story was and why she was here.

"It's a long story." She commented dryly, taking the glass from him.

"I'm a good listener." He told her with a teeny hint of a smile.  
_teeny.  
(_A word most wouldn't use to describe Daryl Dixon. The man looked uncomfortably large- curled up in the booth, his knee brought up to near his chin. Like an over grown boy sitting in a too small chair)

Her eyes drifted down to his arms, bared on the table.

"You are aren't you?" she asked, taking a slow sip. She swallowed.  
"You seem the sort." He gave a quick nod.

"How long ya'll been married?" he asked after a long while of her looking into the depths of her glass.

"Bout a year and a half." She told him.

"An' he only just started hitting on you?" the way he spoke about it was strange. As if he were talking about the weather, or the state of the government.  
(something told her that _was not _a conversation to have with him while he was drunk)

She shrugged. "No. This is just the first time I've done anything about it."

He gave her an 'ahhh.' Face.

"But it's alright- after I had his ass chucked in jail, I numbed the pain at the expense of my liver."

He snorted- "Sounds like a plan ta me."  
She could tell the Booze was setting in. Making him looser than he usually was.  
Even though his eyelids had drooped slightly, she could still see the bright blue irises he possessed, the way they lit up in a certain way- the sorta way that said he really was a good listener. The sort that saw nearly everything, but said nearly nothing.

She shook her head. "I don't know what I did next- I just- I couldn't stop." She let out a mirthless laugh. "Word got around to the Barflies and the Baptists. My Momma's phone started ringing off the hook."

"I'll bet." He scratched at the end of his nose, his thumb thwacking against it.  
He had a funny nose she thought- but still sort of handsome.  
Not the normal sort of handsome. But a particular sort that was just for him.

"Daddy's a lawyer- Momma know's everyone. And being there only little girl." She rolled her eyes as he nodded in understanding, even though something told her he really didn't.

"So I cut my hair and left the house."

"Cut your hair badly and left the house, you mean." He chuckled.

"Okay- okay. You try and do a better job ain't that easy!" She giggled.  
He brushed his hair with his fingertips.

"Shoot- I do a damn good job." He cracked a grin, his nose wiggling as he did.  
The song on the jukebox changed with a creak of the old mechanisms.

"You cut your own hair?" She asked, brow crinkled.

"Since I was 'bout ten- my brother did before that, the reason I started doin' it when I was ten." He shuddered dramatically. "Bastard near took off an ear! Afterwards, I just couldn't trust anyone else with a paira shears that close to my face."

She snorted into her drink, feeling lighter than she had in years. He was good company, she thought.  
She hadn't missed the fact he shared very little of himself as she told him about her marriage and her family-  
But she was okay with that. She didn't expect much from him.  
So what she got she was more than pleased with.

"Your momma' musta been proud'a you." She giggled.

He shrugged, but said nothing.  
Silence fell over the two- slightly less comfortable than the last.  
She figured something bitter must have happened in his past regarding his mother.  
Whether she was dead or he had wished she was, was yet to be seen.

"What does your mom feel 'bout you leavin' him?" he asked after a while twitching in his seat.

"Oh she hates it!" Carol told him. "She likes Ed, think's he's just fine and the whole thing's a shame and stupid."

"Getting hit on ain't ever stupid." he mumbled, not looking up at her. She raised her brows with a shrug.

"I can just hear her now sayin' she ain't gonna have it  
'_Don't matter how you feel, it only matters how you look' " _

He raised an eyebrow, taking a gulp.  
She took another sip of her own, letting the liquid burn down her esophagus  
and leak all the way down to her toes where they rested on the booth next to him.  
A man in the corner laughed too loudly, the jukebox was playing a Hank Williams song and she had had just about enough of her mother's hoity toity bullshit.

And who better to tell than a dirty redneck in a dive bar across town.

She pulled a face, imitating her mother's high voice, she was rewarded with a disgusted look on his part. _"Go and fix your make up, girl, it's just a break up_  
_ Run and hide your crazy and start actin' like a lady_  
_ 'Cause I raised you better, gotta keep it together_  
_ Even when you fall apart…_  
But this ain't my mama's broken heart- she didn't marry a guy who ended up a drunk and started beating on her every other day!"

He made a face, as if he'd been hit himself.  
She realized he probably had at some point, and that made her angrier than Ed ever did.


End file.
